***PRESS RELEASE***

C.P.D.C.Briefs in New Hampshire on

the Present – and Growing – Danger from China

Key Audiences: Candidates, Voters, Legislators

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE—On Monday, February 3rd, the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) held in New Hampshire the second of a series of non-partisan, topical and timely Threat Briefings. They are aimed at informing presidential candidates, the electorate and state legislators about the ominous ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and – thanks in no small measure to financing from U.S. investors – its growing capabilities to act on them.

In a Facebook livestreamed program at the WEDU Conference Center, members of the CPDC and other experts addressed the urgent need for presidential candidates in the first-in-the-nation primary on February 11th, and those they seek to represent, to understand the multifaceted and proliferating threats posed by the CCP to this country and the world. Whether they like it or not, those who seek to be our next Commander-in-Chief will have to contend with and counter China’s decades-long “unrestricted warfare.” And those doing the hiring for that position have a need to know that the applicants are up to what is certain to be Job 1 in the national security portfolio, and probably in the economic and public health ones, as well.

A particular focus of the CPDC presentations at the public event, and in conversations with leading executive branch officials and state legislators, was the dangerous contribution being made to the Chinese threat by individual and institutional U.S. investors —including among the latter the New Hampshire Retirement System (NHRS) pension fund. Such investors are, wittingly or unwittingly, underwriting CCP-owned or -affiliated companies engaged in behavior inimical to our vital interests, economic competitiveness and/or national security.

The briefers were:

Jay Lucas, a former Member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, gubernatorial nominee and successful financier and entrepreneur. Mr. Lucas moderated the program and made brief remarks concerning the need for New Hampshire and the nation to come to grips with the present and intensifying danger posed by the Chinese Communist Party across a very broad front.

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense (acting) and Vice Chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger Frank Gaffney. Mr. Gaffney addressed the historical role a predecessor Committee on the Present Danger played in helping shape the policy battlespace in the run-up to and during the 1980 election with respect to that time’s existential threat to freedom – the Soviet Union. He described, as well, the mandate that resulted for President Reagan to abandon the policy of engagement then known as “détente” in favor of rolling back the USSR. Gaffney argued that a similar course-correction is needed with respect to our era’s existential threat: the Chinese Communist Party. Mr. Gaffney also briefed highlights of “The China Poll” – a national survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted last week by McLaughlin and Associates, one of America’s most accurate and influential polling firms – which the Committee commissioned and rolled out yesterday in New Hampshire. The China Poll, which assessed the awareness of participants about various aspects of the Chinese threat and revealed their extraordinarily robust reactions to factual information about them, can be viewed in its entirety at www.PresentDangerChina.org.

Former China Desk Officer for the Secretary of Defense and founding CPDC member Joseph Bosco, Esq. Mr. Bosco described the historical misconception that prompted successive U.S. governments to believe that engagement that enriched the Chinese Communists and made them critical sources of supply for everything from rare earth minerals to flat screen displays to medicines would transform the PRC into a responsible partner, rather than the formidable adversary it has become. He described the degree to which such engagement has now led to acute threats to the United States’ economy, geostrategic interests and public safety and must be abandoned.

Sean Lin, a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre, executive director of the Global Alliance against Communist Propaganda and Disinformation, a veteran of the U.S. Army and a Falun Gong practitioner. He spoke about: the CCP’s brutal repression of its own people; the steps like the “social credit” system that it is taking to intensify its ability to exercise total control over them; and the Communist Party’s practice of exploiting and even murdering its citizens (e.g., through harsh mass incarceration and organ harvesting). Drawing on his experience as a former director of a viral disease laboratory at Walter Reed, Dr. Lin also discussed the coronavirus crisis and the CCP’s culpability for the pandemic that is now unfolding thanks to its concealment of the onset of the disease in Wuhan, its disinformation about the gravity of the resulting danger and its brutality and incompetence in belatedly trying to contain the virus’ further spread. biological weapons facility in Wuhan.

Finally, Roger Robinson, a former Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the Reagan National Security Council, participated by videotape. Mr. Robinson underscored the point that the aforementioned malevolent Chinese activities – at home and abroad – are being substantially financed by U.S. capital markets. His company, RWR Advisory Group LLC, has identified five companies utilized by the CCP for such purposes as offensive weapons manufacture, sanctions-busting, the build-out of fortified bastions to control the South China Sea and severe human rights violations that are held in portfolio by the New Hampshire Retirement System. Despite their involvement in activities that harm this country and its vital interests and the fact that, in some cases, it is illegal to do business with such firms, NHRS is investing in these companies.

In addition to the program focused on the presidential contest and the need for voters to engage with candidates about their knowledge of the China threat and their plans for contending with it, the CPDC extensively discussed the foregoing issues during a series of interactions with members of the media and the state government. The Committee on the Present Danger: China looks forward to collaboratively addressing them further with the such interlocutors in the near future.

The next CPDC 2020 Battlespace Threat Briefing will take place in Columbia, South Carolina on February 18th. Other states will be added in the coming weeks.